I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 13-14.

Today’s passage mentions three descendants of Jehu who ruled over Israel, the Northern Kingdom. It says of each of them, “He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.” Immediately following this it says that they continued the sins which Jeroboam had led Israel to commit. I have traditionally seen this interpreted as an explanation of what they did which was evil, but I realized today that the writer said that Jehu had continued those sins, but did not say that he did what was evil in God’s sight. This made me realize that continuing the worship of the calves which Jeroboam had built was a separate, less serious charge against these kings than doing evil in the Lord’s sight. I now realize that when the writer refers to people, either individually or as a group, doing evil in the Lord’s sight he does not mean idolatry even though he generally mentions idolatry right before or right after writing that. Evil in the sight of the Lord is not just worshiping other gods. Worshiping other gods is merely the first step towards doing evil.

We see a similar thing when the passage discusses King Amaziah of Judah. The writer tells us that he did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight even though he did not tear down the pagan shrines and allowed the people to continue worshiping at them. Here the writer actually gives us an example of how Amaziah was a good ruler. When he was sufficiently established in power, he had the men who assassinated his father, King Joash, executed, but he did not otherwise punish their children because the Law of Moses said that people should only die for their own crimes. We have this contrast between the kings of Israel, who did evil in the Lord’s sight, and King Amaziah of Judah, who did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight. Yet, when Amazaih initiated war against Jehoash, one of those evil kings of Israel, he lost.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 10-12.

Once Jehu had killed King Jehoram and his mother Jezebel, he consolidated his power by having the leaders of Samaria kill all of King Ahab’s remaining sons. Jehu then proceeded to kill all of Ahab’s remaining relatives, except for Athaliah, Ahab’s daughter who had married Jehoshaphat’s son (more on her shortly). The story mentions that Jehu encountered some relatives of King Ahaziah, the king of Judah who was Ahab’s grandson and whom Jehu had killed when he killed King Jehoram. Why did Jehu kill these men? Perhaps it was just because they were relatives of King Ahaziah and on the way to visit with the family of the king he had just deposed, but I suspect there was more to it than that. It seems to me that we need to consider why these men were visiting the sons of Ahab and the sons of the queen mother (I assume they meant Jezebel). These were wealthy, politically connected men who were likely visiting the Northern Kingdom to take part in activities which would have been frowned upon in Judah. In short, I think they were sex tourists. At the very least, they had traveled to the Northern Kingdom to more openly partake in Baal worship and Jehu killed them as part of his pogrom against Baal worship.

Meanwhile, Athaliah, King Ahaziah’s mother and Ahab’s daughter, moved to seize power in Judah by killing the rest of the royal family. However, Ahaziah’s sister (who may not have been Athaliah’s daughter) hid Ahaziah’s infant son, Joash, in the Temple. Jehoiada, a priest (perhaps the high priest, he certainly became the high priest), raised Joash and taught him to serve God. After seven years, Jehoiada organized a rebellion against Athaliah and placed Joash on the throne. In the aftermath of the rebellion, Jehoiada led the people to rededicate themselves to worshiping God and to destroy the temple of Baal in Jerusalem. King Joash showed his youthful devotion to God by ordering the priests to use some of the money offered in the Temple for Temple repairs. When it became obvious that the priests were unable, or unwilling, to manage such repairs, Joash worked with Jehoiada to arrange for offerings to go directly to workmen who worked to repair the Temple. Joash serves as an example of the influence of a righteous upbringing.